She isn’t shy about speaking up when the calf grain is being handed out, and she loves to run as fast as possible when we bring her outside.

Snowball is mostly gentle, though she’s had a bit of a hard time getting used to being milked. She still moves around and fusses a bit too much. We had a really hard time getting her bred, so last summer we put her out in the pasture with Mr Bull. That did the trick and the result is Calfy.

Snowball was a little scared of going out to the pasture at first last summer. For the first few days, whenever she saw a person, she would come through the fence all wide-eyed and stand next to them. After a while, she got used to being out there, and now as a milker, she goes out every day with those cows.

When we bred Amber, we were very curious as to what her baby would look like…would it be white? Would it be red? Or a mixture? Well we have our answer. Here she is:

But now, we can’t figure out what to call her. We need some help picking her name. So what do you think?

If none of these names seem to fit, you can also leave us suggestions (or just say hi) in the comments section below.

Stevie Rae is another new addition. Her mom is Sugar Rae…so it seemed to make sense that she would be Stevie Rae!

We almost lost this little one in the first few days of life. She didn’t want to suckle and was very lethargic. But after a lot of TLC she latched on to the bottle and now is quite the piggy and tries to suck on anything in sight. She’s also one of the prettiest calves we’ve had probably since Stella.

Slinger shares the same bull as Cookie so she also has a bit of bow leggedness in the back. She’s a bit of a runt but we’ll fatten her up in no time. She needs to be walked and exercised quite a bit to help her legs.

Here she is hanging out in the new corral we built, enjoying the sunshine and the grass.

An ideal area seemed to be behind our barn, it was shaded, and was already an area we would tie animals out in, so it seemed the logical place to build a wooden fenced corral.

We knew this wouldn’t be an easy…or cheap project, but we wanted it to be done, so we went to Lowes and picked up the supplies we were going to need. The posts are 3.5 inches X 3.5 inches X 6 feet, and pressure treated - solid posts that should last for years. We went for cheaper 1×4 for the slates knowing that these would need to be replaced every few years.

The first thing that needed to be done was measuring out the area, and then digging the post holes. Each one needed to be about 2 feet deep (or about 1/3 of the length of the post).

Once the hole was dug, we put in a round cardboard form, set the post in, and poured some fast-setting concrete into the form and then added water. We made sure the post was level and then let it sit for 20 minutes or so.

Once we had let the concrete set, we could fill in the dirt back into the hole and pack it down nice and firm.

Digging the holes was by far the longest and hardest part of the project. Our backs and legs and shoulders and just about every other part of our bodies are still sore. New Hampshire isn’t known as the Granite State for nothing! There were plenty of rocks, tree roots, and other treasures in the soil. About two feet down, we found a garden hose that must’ve been there for at least 20 years! We ended up needing to plant 16 posts in the ground this way.

After we had done a few posts, we were anxious to see what they would look like with boards on them. So we put a few on:

Here’s a look at our first corner (with a lovely shot of the manure spreader in the background).

After a number of hours, things were starting to take shape.

When we got to the other end, we needed to come up with a solution for a gate. We really didn’t want to build one, although we could have if we really wanted to. We needed something pretty lightweight, yet sturdy enough to hold in the cows in the corral. It also needed to be able to easily hang off of the posts.

We found the solution in a pair of chain link 4 foot gates, which we put side-by-side, allowing the tractor to drive into the pen in case it is ever needed. The mounts to hang the gates just needed to be screwed into the post, and then the gates were hung.

Then we had our corral:

Amber is due to calve in a couple of weeks, and she’ll be a good candidate to be put out here for the few days before she calves.

Rescue joined Red Oak Hill Farm a few years ago and was ‘rescued’ from UNH because she milked too slow for their mass production. She’s a good cow and has the honored spot next to Sudden Impact in front of the fans which is a good spot to have in the hot summer months. She also has a place in our hearts because she survived a barn fire we had 2 years ago and a portion of her neck was burned quite badly. But as you can see she’s all healed and back to romping in the fields.

Last month Rescue stepped on one of her teats and pulled it plum off. She’s OK and this is actually a somewhat regular occurance on dairy farms. We had the vet come out to take a look and she’s healed up fine. You can imagine she milks even slower now but for all that this cow has been thru, she’ll be with us for the rest of her days.